Today's mobile devices are developed to offer a user a wide spectrum of usability. A modern mobile device unifies almost all functions known from a usual personal computer and it has additionally the functionality of a mobile phone. They offer, among other things, the possibility to maintain and manage tasks or appointments, browse the internet, writing emails and even executing applications. Additionally, said devices may include useful tools like a video and a photo camera or an mp3 player, for instance.
Due to enhanced device capabilities of regular mobile handsets and new devices, specifically for gaming, the market for mobile gaming is growing rapidly. Mobile devices that are adapted to process complex applications like games for instance have become more powerful in the last years. Those mobile devices include color displays, large memory, as well as download and execution environments making game applications more fun and easier to access.
According to the state of the art, a mobile device interrupts or pauses a running application if an incoming call for instance occurs. This is done by a pop up message or similar and the user has to handle said pop up message for continuing using of said application. There is no possibility to set up a “do not disturb” behavior (or mode) within the running application which makes it possible to run said application without interruptions.
If a user receives for example a short message while running a game application, the operating system will interrupt said game and the user has to handle the pop up messages displayed on the screen for continuing the game. This behavior is undesirable for the user because of the unwanted distractions. Presently, if a user wants to play a game without disturbance, he has to switch off the communication interface of the device to avoid the above-mentioned behavior. However, the user does not want to switch off the communication interface because he needs the cellular engine to connect to game servers, for instance in order to play online multiplayer games. When watching or recording a video on a mobile phone or a mobile media player convergence device, the user does not want to be disturbed by events driven by the phone side of the device.
WO 2004/057888 discloses a mobile terminal that avoids a user to manually adjust the availability settings. However, said device is enabled to selectively set the availability based on a running application. One main disadvantage of the disclosed methodology is the necessary permanent connection to a network and additionally it cannot deal with application running alternatively in the foreground and in the background on the basis of the operating system.